Miami Beach felon charged with Little Havana New Year’s Eve murder of social worker
Hospice social worker Danial “Danny” Touhy’s life ended in the first hours of New Year’s Eve when convicted felon Christopher James Bryant shot Touhy in the back of the head after stealing his car, Miami police believe.
Bryant was booked into jail early Thursday morning.
The murder of the 48-year-old Touhy behind Little Havana’s Delta Auto Parts store, on the corner of Northwest 27th Avenue and Fourth Street, accounts for four of the 14 charges over five cases in Miami-Dade criminal court facing Bryant. In addition to being accused of the armed robbery and murder of Touhy, Bryant, 22, is accused of three other armed robberies and a grand theft.
Bryant’s 2016 battery and fraud convictions from Indian River County allowed prosecutors to throw four felon-with-a-firearm charges at him.
When Bryant got picked up Wednesday, it was by Miami-Dade police’s Robbery Intervention Detail units who then handed him over to Miami homicide cops. Miami police say Bryant admitted to what they say they saw on surveillance video from a camera on Delta Auto Parts’ outer rear wall.
The arrest report says the video shows Bryant approaching Touhy’s car while signaling a dark SUV to block Touhy’s car. After whipping out what the report later describes as a .40 caliber handgun, Bryant gets Touhy out of the car. A brief tussle ends with the Kendall resident on the ground and Bryant driving off in Touhy’s car.
But Bryant drove only to a parking lot across the two-lane Northwest Fourth Street.
“The defendant (Bryant) then exits the vehicle and walks back toward the prone (Touhy),” the report says. “The defendant points his handgun at (Touhy’s) head and pulls the trigger, and the weapon fails to fire. The defendant then pulls back the slide, charging the weapon and shoots (Touhy) in the back of the head.”
Miami police officers looking for a robbery suspect came across Touhy’s body at 1:50 a.m. on Dec. 31.
Touhy’s car was found later in Opa-locka, the report said. Miami Beach police found the handgun when they searched Bryant’s home.
This story was originally published January 3, 2019 at 6:45 PM.
